Kingston SSD wont update firmware

[mjdobson]

Hello all,

I made the upgrade to a Kingston SSDNow V+200 drive with my Windows 8 install recently, but I've been plagued with DPC watchdog violation bsods. After some research I'm pretty sure this is being caused by my not updating the firmware for the SSD. However, whenever I use Kingston's Field Updater utility it can't find my drive. I've tried switching the driver between AHCI and IDE from the windows registry, but no change, the drive just doesn't show up even when running in compatibility mode for Win 7. Additionally my motherboard is an old MSI P6n Platinum which doesn't actually support AHCI so I've been sticking with IDE configuration for now.

Any thoughts? Bottom line I just want this drive to take the firmware drivers but I haven't been able to find any useful documentation.

This is killing my productivity, thanks a bunch.

 

[inzone]

It sounds like you have an old motherboard if it doesn't support AHCI and may not recognize a SSD also. I would go to MSI's support web page and see what bios updates there are and possibly a bios update will help. If you can't get AHCI mode then you won't get the full benefit of the SSD.

 

[mjdobson]

It sounds like you have an old motherboard if it doesn't support AHCI and may not recognize a SSD also. I would go to MSI's support web page and see what bios updates there are and possibly a bios update will help. If you can't get AHCI mode then you won't get the full benefit of the SSD.

Considering the age of my main board AHCI seems to simply not be possible. The SSD is recognized fully and I've been using it as my primary drive for awhile with bsods. I'm willing to live without AHCI I really just want the firmware to install so I can stop getting bsods.

 

[inzone]

A firmware upgrade is a tricky thing and not all SSD makers will have the same process , some will uopdate the firmware witout loseing data and others will update but lose all data.
In your case because you don't have AHCI support it may be problematic and to be honest I would go to the tech support of the SSD maker and ask for assistance in upgrading the firmware or at the very least try the foryms there as they may be more familiar with that SSD.

 

[mad-max79]

Regarding the instructions http://media.kingston.com/support/downloads/SVP200SW_503_fw_win_082212.pdf you need AHCI to update your SSD.
An option would be another machine with AHCI to perform the firmware update, maybe on machine from a friend.

 

[mjdobson]

Best answer selected by mjdobson.